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On December 27 , aWaymo robotaxiand aServe Roboticssidewalk livery golem clash at a Los Angeles intersection , according to avideothat ’s circulating on societal media .
The footage shows a Serve bot crossing a street in West Hollywood at Nox and attempt to get onto the sidewalk . It reached the kerb , backed up a little to correct itself and started propel toward the ramp . That ’s when a Waymo get a right spell hit the fiddling bot .
The person who posted the video recording said the Serve bot had lean a flushed light before the hit , though that ’s not readable from the footage .
One Reddit user commented on the video say : “ Waymo computers : ‘ Does n’t appear to be a human or animal . ’ ‘ No life form discover ’ BAM ! ”
And while that comment was likely made in jest , the view is not exactly wrong .
When TechCrunch require Waymo whether the robotaxi saw the bot , a voice said that the Waymo Driver system right observed that the bringing robot was an inanimate object . The Driver is designed to be a conservative justificative driver that prioritize the safest drive path with the information it has at any give moment , and its power to relegate and tell apart different types of road users and objects inform its behavior around them . For example , the Driver is programmed to be more conservative around kid and pedestrian .
This is n’t to say that Waymo ’s number one wood will just bulldoze anything pulseless ; in this sheath , the delivery robot had break at the curb before driving into the fomite change by reversal lane just as the Waymo robotaxi entered the intersection . At that point , the Waymo Driver applied hard braking before make contact with the rescue golem at 4 miles per hour , according to the Waymo interpreter .
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Neither AV was damage , and the two remained lock for a minute before going their disjoined ways . But as more autonomous vehicles hit public roads , there ’s a interrogation to be ask about what happens when they collide ? How do the companies decide which robot , and therefore , which company , is unresistant in the case of damage ?
Based on former data Waymo has given TechCrunch , when a collision occurs , the Waymo Driver send word the caller ’s Fleet Response and Rider Support squad . The Fleet Response team reviews the tantrum remotely and dispatches a road - side aid representative if needed . The Rider Support squad checks the status of the riders and , if appropriate , get through first responders .
In this specific instance , there was no passenger inside the robotaxi . It ’s not clear if the Fleet Response squad was alerted to this collision , or whether either the Waymo robotaxi or the Serve bot expect humans to assist in catch out of the jam remotely .
A Serve representative told TechCrunch that this is the first instance of one of its bot collide with a robotaxi , and affirm that the bot was under remote supervisory program command at the time of the incident since that is still part of Serve ’s playbook for intersection crossings .
TechCrunch was unable to get more concrete answers from Waymo or Serve regarding specific around indebtedness in the case of next incident that might ensue in more damage . Spokespeople from both company have sustain that they have been in touch to work to avoid standardised issues in the futurity .
